J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

As identified by Cecilia Powell, this page features a view of Florence from the east.1 With the sketchbook turned upright, Turner used the upper section to trace the sloping medieval ramparts of the Oltrarno area, the only section of the old walls to survive a late nineteenth-century demolition programme.2 The crenellated watchtower to the left is presumably the Torre del Belvedere. The buildings of the San Niccolò district are roughly sketched below, including the belltower of the Church of San Niccolò Oltrarno to the right. In the distance are the silhouetted buildings of the historic centre, including, from left to right, the Torre di Arnolfo, the dome of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, and the Duomo complex. Turner likely achieved this viewpoint from a hilltop position near the present-day Piazzale Michelangelo, south of the River Arno. Now a popular observation point affording panoramic views of the city, this hilltop square was built in 1869 as part of an extensive restructuring of the old city walls.3

This view of Florence is out of sequence with the overall itinerary embodied by the sketchbook (see the Introduction), which begins near Genoa and ends near Livorno and Florence. For a general commentary on Turner’s second visit to Florence in 1828, his first journey in 1819, and a list of relevant works in the present sketchbook, see under folio 2 verso (D21415).

Beneath, oriented at a right-angle to the view of Florence above, is a slight and unrelated study that likely represents an earlier stage of Turner’s journey. Its subject is possibly the Church of Santa Maria Assunta in Genoa.